Abu Dhabi Fashion Week began on Saturday night with international and Middle Eastern designers showcasing some of their most elegant and modern designs.
The first day of this four-day international event presented collections by Aisha Desmal, a UAE designer from Abu Dhabi, Milia M from Lebanon, fresh from her triumphant debut in Milan, and a special collection designed and produced by a group of young women from Shaikh Zayed Private Academy.
The fashion shows are being staged in a somewhat shabby custom-built venue in the gardens of Emirates Palace. The venue, which comprises a few hundred chairs, a large screen and a catwalk made up of a thin plastic film spread out across the floor, which the models kept slipping on, is completely unsuitable for an international world-class fashion show. l But the feel of fashion and magnificence is in the air and, thankfully, the venue does not tarnish that.
Shaikh Zayed Private Academy
While the simplicity and luxury of Missoni's designs are incomparable, it wasn't this fashion house that created an uproar on Saturday. To the surprise of many, including me, it was the designs of a group of teenage girls aged 15-17 from the Shaikh Zayed Private Academy (SZPA) that was the most impressive. The first show of the night came as a complete shock that so much talent could come from such a young inexperienced group. The students of SZPA had the most innovative designs proving that talent can come from the most unexpected places.
The girls used and modernised traditional and male outfits and fashioned them into dresses, skirts and tops.
As one designer stated: "Working on this collection gave us the opportunity to express ourselves in ways that lay undiscovered, and to present the essence of the United Arab Emirates with all the captivation it has to offer."
Their first design of a colourful skirt made of woven palm fronds, used in the past to cover and protect food, set the scene for an astonishing display of fresh talent and ingenuity.
Whether it was jeans or a sequinned top, every item had to have a traditional, as well as a modern, touch to it. The models wore the "guitara" tied around their waist and in one of the designs, a red guitara with an "egal" was used as a hat. The modern addition included jeans, fur and a skirt made up completely of CDs.
The collection will be sold at a charity auction on the closing night on Tuesday on behalf of the Abu Dhabi Special Care Centre. The Special Care Centre is a charity, under the Patronage of Her Highness Shaikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Al Nayan, Chairperson of the UAE General Women's Union, which focusses on catering to the needs of handicapped children.
Aisha Desmal
Following Shaikh Zayed Private Academy was another UAE national who also used traditional themes in her designs. But unlike the girls she did not restrict herself to solely the traditions of the UAE. Her outfits had Middle Eastern touches from countries such as the UAE, Pakistan and Turkey.
The embroidery and needlework, however, is inspired mostly by the past of the UAE. The materials and embroidery used in her outfits are the same kind of materials that used to be woven at home by elderly Emiratis. Her use of colours is bold with lots of green, turquoise and blue.
Accessories used were also traditional with a lot of silver, and one particular model wore cascading jewellery placed on the head, as worn in the past by brides.
There were also blue jeans, a sign of modernity, slit up the sides and connected with thin thread. But, unlike many designers, Aisha focuses on the detailed hand embroidery, rather than the designs, which was beautiful.
